Krista Almanzan

News Director & All Things Considered Host

Krista joined KAZU in 2007. She is an award winning journalist with more than a decade of broadcast experience. Her stories have won regional Edward R. Murrow Awards and honors from the Northern California Radio and Television News Directors Association. Prior to working at KAZU, Krista reported in Sacramento for Capital Public Radio and at television stations in Iowa. Like KAZU listeners, Krista appreciates the in-depth, long form stories that are unique to public radio. She's pleased to continue that tradition in the Monterey Bay Area.

Ways To Connect

Drones have moved from corners in the tech and model aircraft worlds to warranting conferences of their own. Right now there’s a major one underway in Atlanta. It comes on the heels of the Drones Data X Conference that wrapped up this weekend with in Santa Cruz.

Drones

The Kaiser Permanente Arena in downtown Santa Cruz is normally home to the D-league basketball team, the Santa Cruz Warriors. But on Friday it was all about drones.

As President Obama nears the end of his term, land conservationists are lining up with proposals to have their piece of country designated a national monument. It’s something the President can do by Executive Order.

Some of the biggest players in the world of drones will be meeting two weeks from now in Santa Cruz. They’re coming for the Drones Data X Conference.

I met the event’s founders, Philip McNamara and Doug Erickson, outside a coffee shop in downtown Santa Cruz. McNamara is a serial entrepreneur who has co-founded four companies. He recently moved here from Ireland by way of Berkeley.

Back in March of 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake in Japan triggered a tsunami, and then a Tsunami Warning for much of the California coast.

At the time the basic tsunami evacuation plan said a Warning should trigger the worst case scenario evacuation. This left county emergency managers with two options: order an evacuation of everyone in the tsunami flood zone or do nothing.

Why even consider doing nothing? Because the 2011 warning came at a time of low tide.